Training women, Pt 1: Introduction

I feel very conflicted about addressing this topic that I'm occasionally asked to talk about, but recently I gave a class about this at a weekend practice and the reception was positive enough for me to expand on it here.

Disclaimers:

1. I strongly dislike the idea that "women", "men", "gays", "whatevers" are a homogenous blob who can justifiably be generalised under any topic. There is a vast amount of individual variation under any grouping, and what applies to example A does not necessarily apply to example H even if both examples are taken from the same group.

2. I have a female body, and I have largely no problem with that, but mentally I identify as what can best described as agender. I pay very little attention to gender in the day to day life, and I have little interest in typically "feminine" activities or aesthetics. I was brought up in a country with a strong tradition of equality, and I often have difficulty relating to the experience of women brought up elsewhere.

3. Rather than just focusing on training women and women's experience of fighting, I think we should consider the experience of anyone who is not what I call a standard fighter: a young to middle age white heterosexual cis man. However, that is a lot all in one go, and, the only aspect of this I am qualified to talk about is the experience of fighting and training as a woman. So that is what I'm going to do, based on my own experiences, those of my friends, those I have read about, and what I know and have experienced of female culture and socialisation outside the fighting area, in the mundane society. 

There is enough material in this topic that I am going to write it up under several posts, as a series. 

Why is this important? Whatever about other kingdoms, in Drachenwald the numbers of fighters have decreased, and much of fighting activities is focused on a few particular tourneys over the year, rather than the kingdom sustaining a balanced and active fighting community across the board. In Insulae Draconis, our participant numbers in the Coronet tourney have doubled over the past few years largely due to more and more women getting involved in fighting on a serious basis. If we want to keep armoured fighting as an important and inspiring element of the Society, we cannot afford to turn potential fighters away or neglect nurturing them just because they differ from the standard.

In my experience, Drachenwald is a very good kingdom in which to be a female fighter. I have experienced no (evident) prejudice due to my gender from other fighters, and I have heard of little such happening, at least in the recent years. I have no doubt that there are also other perspectives.

What I have encountered is, on the one hand, a strong willingness to include non-standard fighters in practices and tourneys but a certain degree of a lack of knowledge of how to best do so, and, on the other hand, practices developing into spaces that, inavoidably, follow the "masculine" paradigm in terms of social interaction and training practices. Such practices can be hard to break into, even with the best will in the world. It is particularly difficult to be more inclusive, if you're not doing anything wrong, but you have no concept that your particular practice mode doesn't necessarily suit everyone, and you cannot even imagine other possibilities.

The purpose of this post series is to ask you to consider how you run your practices and tourneys, how you treat your students and fellow fighters, and whether there are things you could be doing differently.